


hold me in your arms

by owenwilsonvevo



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Angst, Casual Sex, Friends With Benefits, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 00:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17735732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owenwilsonvevo/pseuds/owenwilsonvevo
Summary: Something angry writhes within him as he watches the sun light up the sky, as the sunlight filters in through the car window and warms his skin. It isn’t fair that the sun is still shining and the world is still turning and Roger’s lost so much he can’t breathe.





	hold me in your arms

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to the lovechild of a prompt thats been sitting in my askbox for ages + the seven different requests I’ve gotten for angst 
> 
> this is the second thing I’ve posted today and that’s wild because I’m never this productive but to be fair this is only a first chapter and not a completed fic so 
> 
> it was gonna be just a really long one shot but when I want back to reread this part when I finished it and I was like oh shit that’d actually be a great note to end on but the fic doesn’t actually end there so a chaptered fic it is I guess 
> 
> fair warning: it’s gonna be long and sad and I don’t actually know where I’m going with it so it’s gonna be a roller coaster pls keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times

The lights above him are bright and white. They’re fluorescent as they bear down on him, clinical in that way that hospital lights always are. They’re too bright, buzzing with electricity. There’s a doctor to his right, and she’s definitely talking, but he can’t hear her. He stares up at the ceiling, at the bright, white lights, and all he can hear is how they hum. 

It doesn’t matter, anyway. He already knows what she’s saying. He’s known since he’d been woken up a few hours ago, not long after he’d fallen asleep. The pain had been unbearable, searing, like he was being ripped open from the inside. He’d known right then. He’d known even before he’d turned the lights on and found all the blood. As she tells him what he already knows, he watches the light flicker above him and tries not to focus on how hollow he feels. 

It’s almost impossible. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt so empty, like everything in him that was worth anything was scooped out and all that‘s left behind is an ugly, awful numbness. He feels like a copy of himself, like a version of Roger that looks the same on the outside but has been completely hollowed out. His ears are ringing, but it’s hard to make it out over the hum of the lights. The doctor’s still talking, but it sounds like she’s speaking to him from the other side of a tunnel, a warped, distant echo. The only thing he understands clearly is the gentle tone of her voice when she says, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Taylor.” 

Something cracks in him, then. His ears ring louder, the lights glow a little bit brighter, and his hollow, empty shell is filled with a despair like he’s never felt before. His heart aches with it, and his chest tightens so much that he can’t breathe, that he’s gasping with it, and he still feels so, horribly empty. His hands shake as he lifts them to cover his face, and he knows he’s crying, he can feel the sobs as his whole body shudders through them, but he can’t hear himself over the ringing in his ears and the buzz of electricity. His throat feels raw, and maybe he’s screaming, maybe the grief is too much to keep within him and it’s bubbling out of him in horrible, heartbroken cries. 

The lights overhead are bright and white. The hospital wants to keep him until morning, and he cries himself to sleep beneath the fluorescent lights, clinical and unforgiving in the way that hospital lights always are. His ears are ringing, and it’s to the sound of the lights as they hum that he finally drops into a fitful, dreamless sleep. He’s never felt so hollow before. 

 

 

When he wakes up again, it’s quiet. His ears have stopped ringing and the hum of electricity has faded into something he has to strain to hear. The sharp, technicolor pain in his chest has dulled into a monochrome ache. 

He lifts a hand to rub at his swollen eyes and the hospital wristband, the IV, make something horrible twist in his gut. He lowers his hand quickly, and he lowers it instinctively to his stomach, and that thing in his gut tightens as he snatches it away again as if he’d been burned. Before, he’d cover his stomach with a hand and something giddy would rush over him because he couldn’t believe it, because he’d created that precious little thing that was growing inside him. Now he’s hollow. Now he’s just a shell. 

He feels another crack in the numbness, this time an awful, devastated sort of anger. He feels almost like he’s drowning in it, and he’s only brought back up for air by the sound of Freddie’s voice, still hoarse with sleep. “Good morning, my love.” 

He’s slumped into a chair next to Roger’s bed, legs curled beneath him, head propped up by his hand. He looks like he’s been there all night, hair mussed, eyes lined with dark circles. He doesn’t drive, but he’d offered a couple times to take the wheel from the passenger seat as Roger had driven himself to the hospital in the middle of the night. He’d stayed by his side until the doctor had asked to have a few words, and he must’ve returned while Roger’s ears were still ringing. He wonders if he heard him screaming. 

Roger swallows, and his throat still feels raw. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t know if he can speak. Freddie takes his hand tightly. “How are you feeling?” He asks. 

Roger shakes his head. He can’t bring himself to look at him, and stares up at the ceiling instead, at the bright, sterile lights of his room. 

“I know, darling,” Freddie murmurs, and he squeezes Roger’s hand. “Come on, shove over.” 

Roger turns his head against the pillows, but he isn’t given the time to move over properly before Freddie is climbing into the sliver of empty space between Roger and the side of the bed. He pulls Roger into his arms, and it’s instant, the way the ache in his chest suddenly lights up into something sharp and impossible to ignore. He presses his face to Freddie’s shoulder and Freddie wraps his arms around him as tightly as if he’s afraid that Roger might break apart beneath his hands. Roger feels almost like he might. 

He exhales shakily, but it catches on the lump in his throat and then he’s crying again. He can hear it this time, and it’s awful sound, raw and wretched, a cry like his heart had split open down the middle. Freddie just holds him tighter, running his fingers through the tangled mess of Roger’s hair. He doesn’t say anything, he just lets him cry, and when his sobs finally quiet into soft, shuddery pants, he doesn’t feel any better. Instead, he just feels angry. 

He’s angry because he did everything he was supposed to do. He did everything the doctors and nurses recommended to him, did everything he could to do it right. He quit smoking, he stopped drinking coffee, he started eating better, he took all the vitamins, he did everything right. 

He’s angry at himself, too. He’s angry because he couldn’t do what millions of other people do all the time. He’s angry because he would’ve been having a little girl. Really, it had been too early to tell, but he’d felt it with everything in him, that he was creating a little girl with wide, light eyes and curly, dark hair. He’s angry because he would’ve been having a beautiful little girl, and he let her down. He had one job, to keep her safe, and he couldn’t even do that right. He failed her. 

Something vile and horrible starts to claw it’s way up the back of the throat. It burns in his chest, makes his breath hitch as he exhales. He thinks again of that little girl, a newborn, bundled up in soft yellow blankets. He thinks of her cradled against his chest, so tiny under his hands, her heart beating in time with his own. He thinks of ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes, and the noise that leaves him is horrible. Freddie holds him closer, one hand still tangled in his hair as he tightens the other around him. He doesn’t say anything, just holds Roger against his chest and lets him catch his breath. Roger gasps for air around the acid in his throat and tries to focus on the sound of Freddie’s breathing, of his heartbeat, of nothing else. 

It’s a long time before Roger’s breathing slows, before the tides of misery ebb again into gentle, numb waves. It’s even longer they sit in silence, Freddie’s arms tight around him, Roger slumped against his chest and feeling drained like he’s never felt before. Freddie’s the first to finally speak, hand stilling against Roger’s back. “Come on, love,” he says softly. “Let’s get you home.” 

Roger nods with the very last of his energy. When he has arrived at the hospital, they’d gotten him into a hospital gown for the tests and procedures and exams he’d needed to tell him exactly what he’d already known. The clothes he’d changed out of had been folded neatly and bagged in plastic and now sit on the table next to his bed. His joggers had been light grey in colour when he’d fallen asleep in them, but he can see them now and they’ve been stained a dark, sickly brown with his blood. 

He thinks about putting them back on and his stomach turns something terrible. He remembers how the blood had felt running down the insides of his thighs, constant, like a faucet had been turned on inside him. There had been so much of it, staining through his joggers, leaving sticky red footprints on the hardwood as he had pulled himself from his bed and into Freddie’s room. He’d had a hand pressed against his stomach, trying to will his little girl to be okay but knowing already that she wasn’t. There was just too much blood. 

His stomach turns again, so much it makes his head spin and the world lurches around him. His breath catches in his chest again as Freddie climbs out of the bed, and if he wants to leave, if he wants to get out of the cold, clinic fluorescence of the hospital he’s going to have to put his joggers back on. He thinks he might throw up, but then Freddie’s lifting his bag from beneath the chair he’d slept in and he’s pulling out a set of clean clothes. They’re Roger’s, a different, darker pair of joggers and a worn college jumper. Roger can’t remember him stopping to grab spare clothes of any kind, but most of last night is the colour of blood on his sheets and the ringing in his ears. 

With sticky, bloodied footsteps he’d crossed the hall into Freddie’s room, shaking him awake with unsteady hands. _Freddie_ , he’d whispered. Freddie hadn’t stirred, so he’d shaken him again, and something like a sob had bubbled out of him. _Freddie, please. Something’s wrong._

Freddie had mumbled something into his pillow and rolled onto his back. He mumbled something else, still very half asleep, and the panic, like a storm in Roger, had forced another sob out of him. It had been enough to wake Freddie up, and he’d sat up quickly, reaching to the nightstand to flick on the lamp. _Rog_ , he’d started, _what_ — and cut off at the sight of Roger, pale faced, bleeding down his joggers and onto the hardwood floor. Then they’d been in the car and Roger had been driving himself to the hospital. He wonders if he’d bled into the seat. 

He looks now at the clothes on the bed, thick and soft and his own, and he’s ready to get out of the hospital, he’s ready to leave behind the bright lights and the hum of electricity, but he doesn’t know if he has the energy anymore to even get himself dressed. He’s drained, so tired he can feel it in every part of himself, so tired that it’s weighing his bones down with lead. He swallows thickly, trying to find the motivation to at least sit up in bed. Freddie must see it in him, in the slump of his shoulders or the vacant look in his eye, because he knows, somehow. He doesn’t wait for Roger to ask him for help, he just climbs back into the bed, helping him sit up, stripping him of the hospital gown, gently easing him into the clothing. Roger is empty, but he feels a beat of gratitude somewhere deep within him, a part of him that hasn’t been broken yet. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly, and his voice doesn’t sound like his own. 

“Of course,” Freddie says, pulling Roger’s hair out from the collar of his sweatshirt. Silence lapses between them again. 

Freddie isn’t usually very quiet, loud and bubbly by nature, but Roger thinks maybe he just doesn’t know what to say to him. Not that Roger can blame him — he doesn’t know what he’d say to himself, either. He also doesn’t feel much like talking, so he lets the silence become them, drained of the energy and the want to speak. He lets Freddie dress him, slip on his shoes, help him from the bed and to his feet. He supports most of his weight as he walks them both to the lifts, and he lowers Roger into a chair as he signs him out of the hospital. Roger sits in his chair in the waiting room and stares at the wall. He‘s numb again. 

Then Freddie’s helping him up, to the car, and it’s up to Roger to get them both home because Freddie doesn’t drive. He pulls open the door on autopilot, but the seats in his car are canvas and he had bled clean through his pants. The stain is a big, ugly thing, black and unforgiving, and he can just hear Freddie’s sharp intake of breath before Roger’s turning, throwing up bile and venom onto the asphalt next to his car. 

Freddie’s at his side again, a comforting weight that holds his hair out of the way and rubs soothing circles against his back. “Can I call Deaky to come pick us up?” He asks softly. 

Roger braces a hand against the tire, head bowed as he heaves. If John picks them up at the hospital, he’ll have questions, and Roger doesn’t know if he has it in him to give him any answers right now. He can’t do it, though. He can’t drive home in that car. 

He nods again and Freddie helps him back up, to the other side of the car, and helps him sit on the pavement with his back against it before he sits next to him and fishes his phone from his pocket. He holds Roger’s hand tightly with his other hand. 

Roger slumps into his side and closes his eyes, the world still spinning quickly around him. He can hear the sound of Freddie’s voice, quiet into the phone, but Roger can’t make out any specific words. He thinks he has a headache. 

He doesn’t have to wait long before John drives up, pulling into the spot next to them and climbing quickly from his car. He leaves it on and the door open as he rushes around it to stand in front of them. “What the fuck happened?” He greets. His voice almost seems too loud. “Are you okay?” 

Roger flinches. He isn’t okay. He doesn’t know if he’s ever been less okay. He aches, but in monochrome greys. Freddie squeezes his hand again, brings him back up for air when his chest tightens. “We don’t have to tell him, darling,” he murmurs. 

Freddie had been the only one who’d known. Not just about the blood, the loss, the hollow, empty awfulness that Roger is now made up of, but the baby, the pregnancy, all of it. Freddie had been the first and only person to know before that, even, the thing’s conception, the messy, drunken shag that had brought his little girl to life. It had happened in the backseat of his car, kind of cramped in the small space. Brian had hit his head on the ceiling as they had clambered inside, parked in a dark corner outside the pub they had just played, high on the adrenaline and the alcohol. 

It wasn’t the first time. There’s something about Brian that Roger had become addicted to, maybe his long, slender fingers, maybe the plush of his lips, maybe the low, syrupy way he speaks during and after sex. It might be the way he looks at Roger, it might be the line of his jaw. It had started as a way to work off the adrenaline after a show, a way of burning off some of that pent up energy after they’d had a bit too much to drink. That’s it, that’s all it was. It was just supposed to be a bit of fun, really, but Roger gets attached to people too quickly and he thinks he might have fallen in love somewhere along the way. 

Freddie knew. Freddie had figured that part out before Roger had even told him. He’d also been the first to know that night, because that night Roger was supposed to tell Brian, had every intention of finally letting him know how he felt, if anything just to get the weight of it off his shoulders. Roger had made it home first, and had been curled up in bed, half naked and mostly asleep when Freddie had let himself into the room and draped himself over Roger with a drunken hum. 

_Did you tell him_? He’d asked. 

He’d wound his arms around Roger’s waist, nuzzling against his shoulder. Roger pressed his face against his hair and mumbled, _no. I let him fuck me again_. 

Freddie was the first to know a few weeks later, too, when he’d come home and Roger had upended most of their living room, pregnancy test in one hand. Freddie had come with him to his first doctors appointment, and he’d developed a habit of coming home with patterned onesies and tiny, colourful pairs of shoes. 

Freddie was the first to know, but Roger had every intent of telling Brian, of telling John. He had just been waiting for the right time. 

He should be embarrassed, he thinks. She’d been apart of him for such a short time. He’d been a week shy of only three months and he still feels her loss like his heart had been carved out of his chest. He keeps his eyes on the pavement, because he can’t look at John, he can’t see the surprised, pitying look he’ll give Roger when he knows. He nods. 

Freddie squeezes his hand again, but he must know, he must see in Roger’s downcast eyes and his defeated lean against the side of the car. He stands, and a moment later Roger can hear John’s car being shut off as Freddie leads him past it, a safe distance away, talking to him quietly. He can hear the exact moment that John understands. 

“ _What_?” He asks, and it’s so loud in the early morning, empty parking lot quiet. Then Freddie’s voice again, soft, then Roger can hear footsteps before John’s shoes step into his field of vision. He doesn’t say anything else, just crouches down next to him and pulls Roger into his arms. 

Roger leans his entire weight into him, shuddering against his chest. He doesn’t cry this time, he doesn’t have the energy left, but he feels every bit like his rib cage is being crushed into his chest. “I’m so sorry,” he says quietly, and Roger aches. He doesn’t cry but the pain in his chest is still enough to take his breath away. His heart still beats but it’s been shattered and he can feel each of the broken shards of himself as they break apart within him. It hurts to breathe, and it’s brought to his attention again just how empty he feels, alone again in his body. He doesn’t say anything, but he has nothing to say. John pulls away slowly. He keeps a hand on Roger’s arm. 

“C’mon,” he says, and he says it carefully, like he’s talking to a wild animal. At any other point in his life Roger thinks he might be pissed off by it, by the slow, tentative tone, but now the world is blurry around him and he can’t bring himself to care. “I’m going to take you home.” 

With Freddie’s help, he gets Roger to his feet and into the backseat of his car. They strap him in, and if Roger had it left in him to feel any sort of positive emotion he thinks he might be grateful for them. They strap him in because Roger doesn’t have the energy left to do it himself. Then they’re in the front seats and Deaky’s driving to their flat. The radio’s on low and the sun is big and bright in the sky. Roger watches the scenery pass them as they drive, head leaned against the window, and it’s a beautiful day, cloudless and sunny, a light and endless blue sky. Something angry writhes within him as he watches the sun light up the sky, as the sunlight filters in through the car window and warms his skin. It isn’t fair that the sun is still shining and the world is still turning and Roger’s lost so much he can’t breathe. It isn’t fucking fair. 

He turns away from the window and keeps his eyes closed for the rest of the ride back to his flat. Freddie and John don’t try to talk to him, they don’t ask him if he’s okay, and he’s glad. He doesn’t want to talk because he isn’t okay, but he thinks they already might know that. When they pull up to their building, Freddie and John both climb from the car again, walking around it to help Roger out and to his feet. 

He’s hurting, and not just emotionally. The loss in him is horrible and blistering but more than that, it still hurts. Waking up in the dead of night, the world grey and still around him, he’d immediately known something was wrong because of the pain radiating through his stomach, his upper thighs, his lower back. It was a searing, unimaginable sort of pain. It was the sort of agony that made his vision swim, that made him see white instead of the darkness of his room or the blood on his bedsheets. He’d been losing the little life within him and he still hurts now that she’s gone. He can still feel the cramping, the white hot flashes of pain in his back and his thighs and his stomach. He leans heavily into John’s side. Freddie wraps an arm around his waist, and together they support most of Roger’s weight and help him into the building, up the stairs, into the flat Roger and Freddie share. Roger wants nothing more than to head straight for his room and curl up in bed, to hide beneath the sheets until everything stops hurting, until he feels like he can breathe again. He thinks of his bed, though, and he thinks of waking up on bloodied sheets, and his stomach heaves when he thinks of going back into that room and seeing exactly how much blood had soaked through them. He hadn’t changed them before he’d left for the hospital, and his hands shake when he thinks of changing them now. 

He wrenches himself from Freddie’s arms, staggering into the kitchen and leaning himself over the counter just in time to vomit into the sink. He thinks of stained sheets and the scent of blood and how tacky it had felt as it dripped down his thighs and pooled around his bare feet. He screws his eyes shut. 

Freddie’s at his side again, rubbing his back, murmuring something that Roger can’t hear over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. He’s patient with him, keeping Roger’s hair back, pulling him into another hug when Roger can finally lift his head out of the sink again. He only pulls away to hand him a glass water, watching Roger like he’s afraid he might shatter. At any other time, Roger knows how much he’d hate it. Now, he feels like Freddie might be right. He feels like he’s made of glass. 

He looks down at the glass in his hands, filled with water. His knuckles are white where they’re curled around it. He feels like he’s made of glass, like he’d started cracking beneath the weight against his chest, like he’s just waiting now to shatter. He feels brittle. Freddie’s hand is still at his back and Roger feels like it might be the only thing that’s keeping him from splintering apart in the kitchen, thinking of bloodied bedsheets and tiny, patterned onesies. It’s a helpless feeling. He feels helpless. 

He throws the glass at the wall. It explodes in a torrent of water and broken glass but Roger doesn’t feel any less helpless. Something like anger swells up in him, something panicked and powerless and furious. He’s distantly aware of Freddie taking a step back as he screams, so loud he thinks he can feel the floor quake with it. There’s a line of glasses beside the sink, dishes that have piled up while Freddie and Roger have been too lazy to clean them, and he grabs at them now, hurling them into the wall to his left, the linoleum at his feet. He wants to feel better, he wants to get rid of the crushing weight on his chest, and when each broken glass doesn’t help it only makes him angrier. He throws the toaster, he kicks over a chair, he flips the kitchen table over and still, he feels so empty. He screams again, a bloodcurdling sound, and crumples to his knees amongst broken glass and porcelain. He slumps forward, arms braced against the floor, and screams so hard his entire body shakes with it. He screams until his throat is raw, until it makes his voice break and then, finally, he quiets. His hair is hiding his face, head propped against his forearms as he quiets but doesn’t rise. Suddenly, he’s drained again. 

Freddie, who had patiently let Roger work his way through most of the cups they had in the flat, kneels behind him slowly, weary of the glass, and props his chin on Roger’s back as he winds his arms around him as best he can. “Come on, love,” he says softly. “Let’s get you settled on the couch. It’ll be more comfortable for you.” 

Roger doesn’t see what difference it makes if he’s comfortable, but he nods. Freddie helps him up, John at his other side, and together they get him to the living room before he crumples onto the couch in a pathetic, miserable pile. There’s a blanket thrown over the back of it, and Freddie tugs it down over him, tucking him in like he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands. Roger wants to feel bad, for being so useless, for being so broken that neither of them know what to do with or for or around him, but he doesn’t. He feels nothing but that withering, unbearable sadness. 

“You stay here,” Freddie says finally, like there was any chance in hell of Roger getting up from the couch. “Get comfortable. I’m going to get you something for breakfast, okay?”

“I’m not hungry,” Roger says. His voice is thick. 

Freddie pushes his fringe back from his eyes. “I know, darling,” he says softly, “but you’ve gotta eat something. Something light, okay? I’m sure we’ve got some kind of fruit around here. I think I can figure out how to cube fruit.” 

“No,” John cuts in, standing behind the couch, Roger’s back to him. “Absolutely not. I don’t trust with you knives,” he says bluntly, and ignores the high, outraged noise Freddie makes. “You stay here, I’ll cube the fruit. You can help me pick up the glass later.” He squeezes Roger’s ankle as he walks around the couch and back into the kitchen. They both watch him go, before Freddie’s climbing onto the couch at his feet, draping himself over Roger’s curled legs and leaning his head against his hip. He doesn’t say anything, and for a long time all Roger can hear is the sound of his own heartbeat hammering too quickly in his chest. 

“I think she would’ve been a girl,” he says finally. It’s quiet, spoken mostly into the couch cushion. He isn’t entirely sure why he says anything at all. 

Freddie’s quiet for so long Roger starts to doubt if he’d even spoken out loud. Then, just as quietly, arms tightening around him, he says, “she would’ve been a beautiful little girl.” 

Roger sniffles softly. “Yeah.” 

“And she would’ve inherited your attitude,” he adds softly, in a tone like he’s thought about it before. “She’d be bossy.”

“Yeah,” he whispers. 

“But we’d all let her get away with it,” Freddie adds softly. 

Roger sniffles again. “You’d never be able to say no to her,” he says faintly. “She’d have a temper like mine.” 

“She’d be too cute,” Freddie murmurs, “we couldn’t say no to her if we wanted to.” He reaches up to adjust the blanket around Roger’s shoulders, continues softly, “and she’d have taste like mine.” 

Roger can’t help the quiet huff that leaves him. He can feel Freddie smile against his hip. “I’m serious, darling,” he insists. “I’d teach her well. She’d have expensive taste and I’d have no choice but to buy her whatever she wanted. I’d go broke keeping her happy.” 

He closes his eyes. “I loved her so much.” 

A hand curls around his thigh, soothing. “I know, my love,” Freddie murmurs. They’re quiet again for the time it takes John to leave the kitchen again, armed with a plate of cantaloupe, cut into cubes, a sleeve of saltines, and a bottle of Aspirin. “What do you think, dear?” Freddie asks as John hands Roger the Aspirin, who takes it from him slowly. “What would Rog’s little girl be like?” 

“A brat,” he replies without missing a beat. He hands Roger a plastic bottle of water, one that wouldn’t shatter if he were to throw it at the wall, and wedges himself into the sliver of space between the top of Roger’s head and the arm of the couch. Roger shifts, lifting his head onto Deaky’s thigh. 

“You would’ve loved her, right?” He asks. John is wearing a cuffed pair of flannel pyjama pants and they’re warm and soft against Roger’s cheek. His feels the smallest bit of warmth in his chest, this time because Deaky had left his own flat in pyjama pants and a Disneyland jumper, bleary eyed and messy haired to pick Roger up from the hospital. 

His hand finds Roger’s hair, and Roger’s so grateful for him. “Of course,” he says. “She’d grow up in a flat with Freddie, it wouldn’t be her fault she’d be a brat. I couldn’t blame her for it.” 

“Please,” Freddie scoffs. “Like you wouldn’t be here every day to see her. If anybody would be to blame for her attitude, it would be you.” 

“I would be to blame for her excellent taste in music,” he says. “And I’d teach her to play the bass. Her attitude would be on you.” 

Whatever Freddie says next Roger can’t hear over the ringing that starts in his ears. Suddenly, the hurt is spreading through him again, so cold that it burns as it courses through his veins. His hurt is ice and it makes him shiver, even bundled up beneath a blanket and Freddie and John’s shared body heat. Then he’s crying again, tucking his face into John’s pyjama pants with a sob because apparently he hasn’t cried himself out yet. There’s a part of him that almost feels foolish, like he’s being dramatic, like he should grow up and stop crying but there’s a bigger part of him, the frozen, ice slick part, that imagines a version of him, a couple years in the future, with a toddler. A tiny little girl, short like him but with an even bigger personality. She’d demand things in her small, soft voice, she’d want things and want things to go her way in that way that most two year olds do. She’d have all four of them wrapped around her little finger. That frozen, ice slick part of him that can’t stop thinking about her, with big, wide eyes and thick, curly hair, shudders beneath his blankets as he cries. 

For the second time, he cries himself to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> don’t forget to come find me on [tumblr](http://sweetheaert.tumblr.com)! it’s not required but I sure do appreciate it


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